The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-02

fall She laughs with shrill voice that
drops dead at its own sound. The sweat on
her brow is the spray dashed up from the
river of death. The clock strikes -four"
and the rosy dawn soon after
begins to look through the lattice
upon the pale form that looks like de
tanned spectre of the night. Soon in a mad
house, she will mistake her ringlets for curl
ing seIpents, and thrust her white hand
through the bars of the prison and smite her
head, rubbing it back as though to push the
scalp from the skull, shrieking: MY brain!
my brainw o, stand Off from that Why
will you go sounding your way amid the
reefs and warning buoys when there is such
O vast ocean in which you may voyage, all
sail set!
There is one other thing shall say this
morning before / leave you, whether you
want to hear it or not. That is, that con-
slider the lascivious pictorial literature
of the day as most tremendous for ruin.
There is no one who can like good pictures
better than do. The quickest and most
condensed way of impressing the public
by his brush for few favorites,
the engraver does by his knife
for the million. What the author accom-
plishes by fifty pages the artist does by
flash, The best part Of a painting that
costs ten thousand dollars you may buy for
ten cents Fine paintings belong to the
aristocracy of art, Engrayings belong to
the democracy of art. You do well to
gather good pictures in your homes. Spread
them before your children after the tea
hour is past and the evening circle is gath
cred, Throw them ON the invalid's couch.
Strew them through the rail-train TO cheer
the traveller on his journey Tack them on
the wall of the nursery. Gather them in
albums and portfolios. God speed the good
pictures on their way with ministries of
knowledge and mercy
But what shall say of the prostitution of
this art to purposes of iniquitys These
death warrants of the soul are at every
stteet corner. They smite the vision of the
young man with pollution. Many young
man buying copy has bought his eternal
discontinue There may be enough poison
in one bad picture to poison one soul, and
that soul may poison ten, and ten fifty,
and the fifty hundreds, and the
hundreds thousands, until nothing
but the measuring line Of eternity can tell
the height, and DEPTH and ghastliness, and
horror of the great undoing The work Of
death that the wicked author does in a
whole book the bad engraver may do on a
half side of a pictorial. Under the guise of
pure mirth the young man buys one of
fore his comrades amid roars of
laughter, but long after the paper is gone
the result may perhaps be seen in the blasted
imaginations of those who saw it. The
queen of death holds a banquet every night,
and these periodicals are the printed invita-
tion to her guests. Alas that the fair brow
| of American art should be blotched with
this plague-spot, and that philanthropists,
bothering themselves about smaller evils,
| should lift up no united and vehement voice
| against this great calamityl
Young mani buy not this moral strycl-
nine for your soull Pick not up this nest of
coiled addeIs for your pocket! Patronize no
news stand that keeps themI Have your
room bright with good engravings; but for
these outrageous pictQrials have not one
wall, not one bureau, not one pocket. A
man is no better than the pictures he loves
to look at. III your eyes are not pure, your
heart cannot be- At a news stand one can
guess the character of man by the kind of
pictorials he purchases When the devil
fails to get q man to read bad book, he
sometimes succeeds in getting him TO look
at bad picture. When Satan goes fish
ing he does not care whether it is a long line
or short line, if he only draws his victim
in. Beware of lascivious pictorials, young
man, in the name OF Almighty God | charge
you.
If have this morning successfully laid
down any principles by which you may
Judge in regard to books and newspapers,
then ] have done something which ! shall
not be ashamed on the day which shall try
every mans work, of what sort it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers. Be
ware of the bad ones. One column may
save your soul; one paragraph may ruin it.
Benjamin Franklin said that the reading of
Cotton Mathers Essay on Doing Good"
moulded bis entire life. The assassin of
Lord Russell declared that he was led into
crime by reading one vivid romance. The
consecrated John Angel James, than whom
England never produced better man, de-
clared in his old days that he had never yet
got over the evil effects of having for fifteen
minutes once read bad book But / need
not go SO far off. / could come
near home, and tell you of some
thing that occurred In my college
days. / could tell you of a comrade who
was great-hearted, noble and generous. He
was studying for an honorable profession;
but he had an infdel book in his trunk, and
he said to me one day: Dewitt, would
you like to read itr' / said: "Yes, / would :"
l took the book and read IL only for a few
minutes. ] was really startled with what
saw there. and handed the book back TO
him and said: "You had better destroy
that book" No, he kept it. He read ii. He
re-read it. After awhile he gave up religion
as a myth He gave up God as a nonentity.
He gave up the Bible as a fable He gave
ton. He gave up good morals as being un-
necessarily stringent. / have heard OF him
but twice in many years. The time before
| the last heard OF him he was a confirmed
inebriate The last heard of him he was
coming out Of an insane asylum-in body,
mind and soul an awful wreck / believe
that one infdel book killed him for two
worlds
Go home to-day and look through your
library, and then, having looked through
your library, look on the stand where you
keep your pictorials ard newspapers and
apply the Christian principles / have laid
down this morning. II there is anything in
your home that cannot stand the test, do
not giveit away, for it might spoil an i'm
mortal soul; do not sell it, for the money
you get would be the price Of blood; but
rather kindle fire on your kitchen hearth,
or In your back yard, and then drop the
poison In it, and Keep stirring the blaze until
from preface to appendix there shall not be
single paragraph left, and the bonfire in
Brooklyn shall be az consuming as that one
in the streets of Ephesus.